Thursday, February 01, 2007

Minor Humor

The Greensboro News-Record ran an article today: "Ask local prosecutors about an upcoming case and there's a good chance you'll hear a similar refrain. 'I don't want to be a Nifong.'"

The phenomenon, reporter Jonathan Jones asks, "raises the question: Is Nifong's legacy going to be his name as euphemism?" Quite possibly yes.

Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster associate editor, told Jones that "Nifonged"--meaning "railroaded"--"is starting to get used. And that's how it happens that a word ends up in the dictionary." Such a result would be a fitting legacy.

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Another example of the case as farce: The Spoof this morning published breaking news--Mike Nifong is planning to continue his crusade against Reade Seligmann. Now that the lacrosse case charges are clearly fraudulent, the new allegation? That Seligmann parked in a "residents only" space.

Said Nifong, "It is my job as prosecutor to make sure justice is done. This man was parked in a resident space and he should be punished."

The chief witness to the crime (which carries a mandatory sentence of enrolling in "Hook-Up Culture at Duke") was at the grocery and unavailable for comment, but Nifong said proceeding with indictments based on second-hand testimony was OK by him.

The Spoof didn't say how it obtained an interview with the reclusive D.A.

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And, in unintentional humor: the Herald-Sun has added Shadee Malaklou (best-known for her occasional error-filled rants against the lacrosse team--to its roster of top-notch reporters. Her first assignment as a stringer: the cutting-edge tale of Durham residents who saved an injured young eagle while out of town.

Given Malaklou's past inability to get her facts straight, the true story probably was that Raleigh residents shot a crow while passing through Cary. But she'll fit right in at Bob Ashley's H-S.

90 comments:

The Herald-Sun hired Shadee! Once again, I am speechless! Durham has certainly provided you with an unlimited supply of material. Who could have imagined the Pandora's Box that was being opened when you first began researching this case!

ASU penalizes RA after diversity activity protestBy David Biscobing, For the TribuneFebruary 1, 2007Arizona State University placed a resident assistant on probation four days after he objected to a diversity training exercise that he said reinforced negative stereotypes and portrayed Christians as hateful and narrow-minded.Related LinksASU student objects to sensitivity exerciseToday's Top StoriesNewsEducationRyan Visconti, a 22-year-old political science student from Mesa, said he believes he was placed on probation because he spoke with the Tribune about the Jan. 11 role-playing exercise that was required for his dorm job. Visconti also filed a formal complaint Jan. 13 at ASU.

He said supervisors told him that part of the reason he was placed on probation was because he missed a different training exercise on homosexuality and gay marriage. He said he skipped the exercise because of his negative experience with the earlier activity.

“They told me the probation wasn’t about me talking to the newspaper — it was about other things,” said Visconti, who is on probation until his graduation this spring. “It just seems strange that I get put on probation after the article came out.”

His employer, ASU Residential Life, said the probation was based on performance issues unrelated to the Tribune article that appeared Jan. 21.

Residential Life spokeswoman Diana Medina said she could not speak about the probation because Visconti has not given ASU permission to discuss his employment records.

An attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale-based nonprofit organization that defends religious freedom, is now looking into the situation on Visconti’s behalf.

“Any time a state entity takes a position on things like religious topics that deal with how people should believe, it can raise some constitutional issues,” said David French, the alliance’s director of the Center for Academic Freedom.

During the first role-playing exercise, Visconti was assigned the identity of a gay Hispanic and told to visit different “life stations” and attempt to create a “perfect life.” The stations included booths for housing, employment, transportation, church, jail and banking. At each booth, individuals gave Visconti scripted responses based on his assigned identity.

He was banned from the Christian “church,” forced to live in a “ghetto apartment” and allowed to choose between jobs as a “construction worker” or “landscaper.” Visconti said the exercise suggested that only white males can graduate from college or earn big salaries — and everybody else in society is a victim of discrimination.

“This is nothing but an ultra-clear example of what is being taught in universities today,” Visconti said. “If you are a straight, white, Christian male, all of society’s problems are your fault and you are privileged.”

According to Medina, Visconti had the option of discontinuing participation at any time during the exercise.

She said Residential Life uses similar training exercises every year that are developed from national leadership conferences and are designed to increase sensitivity and awareness about different social, racial and economic groups.

Resident assistant Pat Battillo, a 20-year-old business management junior, participated in the same training exercise as Visconti and found the exercise rewarding and valuable.

“It has really helped me as an RA and opened my eyes to different groups and their views on religion, sexual preference and life,” he said.

Battillo said he was given descriptions of the exercises before he completed them. Some of the exercises even had warnings that some of the situations in those exercises might be sensitive.

Medina said many other participants besides Battillo found the exercises valuable. However, she said Residential Life is reviewing its training program to see if changes are necessary.

Readers speak out

Visitors at evtrib.com have posted more than 230 comments about ASU’s diversity training. Here is a sampling:

• “Exercises designed to create tolerance, like this one, have long been intolerable.” — Michael

“I am white and would like my privilege. I have been waiting for the easy path for 33 years.” — Ryan

I love that one...and am reminded of the person at a recent identity theft (security) conference who seemed to be unconcerned about the ever increasing threat and havoc wrecked upon people whose identities were stolen. His resonse? "I wish them well and hope they can do more with it (his identity) than I have.

For humour that highlights the absurdity and intellectual bankruptcy in postmodern cultural studies, google "Sokal Hoax" or the "Sokal Affair" on Wikipedia.

"The Sokal Affair was a hoax by physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editorial staff and readership of a leading postmodern cultural studies journal called Social Text (published by Duke University). In 1996, Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University, submitted a pseudoscientific paper for publication in Social Text, as an experiment to see if a journal in that field would, in Sokal's words: "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions"

On the day of its publication, Sokal announced in another publication, Lingua Franca, that the article was a hoax, calling his paper "a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense", which was "structured around the silliest quotations I could find about mathematics and physics" made by humanities academics."

That the Hurled Scum would offer a spot to Shagme Malignyou really stimulates my absurd humor receptors. Love your Raleigh Cary crow aside. Really, though, what place could be a more appropriate employer? Let's look for Nifong as a community affairs columnist after his rehabilitation. sic semper tyrannis

Following up 5:44 -- This is extraordinary. The author of that blog, Amanda Marcotte, was yesterday appointed official "blogger-in-chief" for the John Edwards campaign. As one can see from the article you linked to, she's not only convinced the Duke 3 are guilty but also angry that anyone contends to the contrary.

The Spoof is dead-on. My fair city does not tolerate rapists and/or ruthless parkers. As a longtime resident of Durham, I sleep well knowing parking tickets will be issued at 3 am for parking in the wrong direction on a quiet residential street.

DURHAM, NC--With his case against the Duke lacrosse team in tatters and the accuser’s testimony looking less and less credible, Durham district attorney Mike Nifong has come forward with a new claim: that the suspects in the case raped him. He offered little evidence to support his claim but said that “everything would come out in due time.

Nifong originally claimed that three players on the Duke lacrosse team raped a stripper at a party, a claim that, after nearly six months of investigations and interviews, appears to have little merit.

“Yes, it is true that these three hooligans have raped me,” Nifong told the News and Observer yesterday. “I have the evidence to prove it, too. I have startling testimony from me, the victim, as well as some gruesome cuts and scars on my genitals. Of course I’m not showing anybody any of this stuff right now. It’s all top secret. In fact, I think the court should just take my word for it and send these kids to jail. That will teach them a lesson.”

Nifong said he still plans to prosecute the boys for the original charge of sexually assaulting the stripper, but for now, that case is on the back burner.

“Yes, I’m still pursuing that case,” Nifong said. “But its very difficult and complicated and I think we should just put it on the back burner and focus on what happened to me last night. I have a reliable witness – myself– and I have compelling testimony from someone who won’t keep changing his story – myself– plus I have some good physical evidence. But most importantly, we have the suspects themselves. Just look at them. How can anyone that clean-cut and white not be a rapist?”

Nifong has been criticized by legal experts for his handling of the high-profile rape. Since the initial charges were filed, numerous holes have been shot through the case and members of the defense team have urged him to drop the case altogether. However, Nifong has been steadfast in his commitment to bringing it to trial.

Kim Roberts, a dancer that accompanied the accuser to the party where she was allegedly raped, cast doubt on the accuser’s statements, saying she was “talking crazy” that night. When told of the latest allegation, Roberts said she wasn’t surprised.

“Nothing surprises me when it comes to that Nifong guy,” said Roberts. “He’s just grasping at straws now because he knows his original case is dead in the water. He’s got no DNA evidence, no reliable testimony, and no credibility. Even the press is making fun of him. That's what happens when you charge someone with rape with no evidence to back it up and a cooky stripper like me as your main witness ”

Legal experts also predicted that Nifong’s latest allegations would not stand up in a court of law, and accused him of trying to deflect attention from the main rape case.

“Mr. Nifong should just drop the original rape case, drop the current one, and let these kids go on with their lives,” said ESPN legal analyst Roger Cossack. “No judge is going to take this stuff seriously. I mean, them raping him? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. He’s the prosecutor in their rape trial. He’s the last person they’d want to rape. Plus he's all old and frumpy looking. I mean come one. Those kids have better taste than that.”

Defense attorneys for the three accused players expressed outrage over news of the new charges, and immediately sent a letter to Nifong urging him to drop them along the original charges.

“I urge Mr. Nifong to do the decent thing, the honorable thing, and drop these ridiculous charges immediately,” said attorney Joseph Cheshire, who is representing one of the three players. “These young men need to go on with their lives. Just because they’re wealthy, white, male, preppy lacrosse players doesn’t mean their rapists. It just means they’re annoying. That’s not a crime, is it? Because if it was, half the people involved in this case would be behind bars.”

Meanwhile, Amanda Marcotte posts on her blog: "...I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the [airport] waiting area and good [...] god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and [...] her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."

7:52 PMReading Amanda Marcotte's blog is an eye opener. She spews about the LAX case with the same confidence and disdain for facts as her other 'tin hat' political views.

It shows how a deeply rooted agenda trumps all facts and logic, even at this late date in the case. More surprisingly, she has been selected for a key position for a 'mainstream' presidential candidate. Makes one wonder.

I watch the news channels a lot. Nancy Disgrace is on CNN - she won't talk about the case because she made such a fool of herself early on. Amanda - you have the wrong channel - CNN is not a big or little supporter of the Lax team.

KC should consider making a post just on that blog alone. There was one fairly liberal guy that that tried to use reason and facts. That approach doesn't work with these people. These people are university educated? Doesn't say very much for a university education today with people like these.

Example:

Harkonnendog Jan 23rd, 2007 at 3:27 pm

Rape is a crime unlike others. In any rape case, but especially in a rape case where a black woman accuses a white man, the rapist should be considered guilty until he proves his innocence. And he must prove his innocence not beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any possible doubt. The Durham rapists have not done so, by any means.

People claim this is unfair, but 400 years of slavery and countless millenium of male on female rape make this not only fair, but necessary. Let’s just say the accusation of rape IS false, that doesn’t take away the rapists (yes, they’re still rapists even if these particular men didn’t rape this particular women) genealogical guilt. How many slaves have their forefathers raped? Nobody asks that question.

And I”ve no doubt these men would be raping slaves if they could get away with it. They are white and rich, they are jocks, they attend an expensive university, (no doubt with money saved from when their families owned plantations) and they hired black strippers. Even worse, they requested white strippers first, which proves they are bigots.

People who talk about the details of guilt in this particular case are missing the forest for the trees. The narrative is bigger than 3 white boys whose lives are inconsequential compared to the sweep of history- of the descendants of slaves getting just recompense on the descendants of slave owners.

Michael, I think your irony sensors let you down. That post was clearly satirical, and the guy who posted it was subsequently denounced as a "troll" by the Marcottians. But other comments on that site, obvously dead serious, are scary. Man, talk about feeling 'othered.'

Thanks for the reality check. I went to Harkannondog's blog but I couldn't figure the guy out. There was just a very long story or parts of one.

Satire or not, it seems to represent the feelings of most of the posters over there. I'm shocked that there are really people that believe this way. I guess Nifong knows a lot of people like this and knows how to pull their chains.

Yikes! Them thar descendants of slaves have a heavy load. They be forced to carry around all those grievances which make running down to Social Services for whatever they might need so much trouble. Someone needs to hire a govern-MINT stooge to make deliveries.It's hard out here for a brotha or a sista who's been mugged by Wahneema's metaphor.

I sent an email to the Edwards campaign quite some time ago with my question. Of course they never answered my question but I get a near daily spam email from them reqesting one thing or another or talking about his latest speech or gathering). KC pinging a presidential candidate over 1) not saying anything about something in his backyard and 2) hiring a nut as his blogperson would be interesting to see if it brought any further political heat on the hoax.

I would absolutely love to see a question on this case in the presidential primary debates. Too bad Ed Bradley is gone.

November 2008 - Mike Nifong narrowly wins three way congressional race with large support of the black community...Pundits report that widespread community belief that Nifong was the victim of a powerful white male conspiracy contributed to heavy voter turnout resulting in.....

November 2013 - Local housepainter and former 2-term Congressman Mike Nifong was accused of defrauding an elderly woman in a house painting scam....Nifong denied all allegations about inferior workmanship...claiming that he provided two coats of paint and that the customer was part of a conspiracy to discredit his livlihood....

I guess poor Cy is glad she decided to keep her last name now.At least she won't be "Nifonged" for life. Although she's got to be as much of a nasty azzhole as her hubby.I bet they even have matching bathrobes.

I don't mean to be greedy, but shouldn't Amanda Marcotte be considered yet another target for the approaching lawsuits? I mean...to have made a statement like that at THIS point in the story seems either beyond stupid or beyond malicious.

Hmmm. Corruption of Blood is an interesting theory. But you can't have it both ways. So I've just decided to be glad I'm descended from people like Isaac Newton and the rest who invented everything in the world. (Hmmm....now I'm feeling pretty conceited!")

I'm surprised that noone has come up with a corruption of offspring theory. Not only are you responsible for everyone in your past but you're responsible for everyone in your future. Of course someone is needed to make that determination. But you can just create a department at a famous university to take away the future guilt.

You don't know John Edwards. I've met the man. He's honest, decent, hardworking, and kind. He genuinely cares about making this great country even better. Your comments suggest that you have made incorrect assumptions about him. Your tone is discourteous and I object to it. If you disagree with his politics, that's fine. Say so in a polite and gentlemanly or gentlewomanly manner.

All that being said, while I supported Senator Edwards in the 2004 presidential primary campaign, if his staffmembers are paying so little attention that they'd hire someone like Marcotte (or, God forbid, they are paying attention and they know her views), I'm afraid I'll be supporting someone else this go 'round.

I brought up The Social Text Affair and had our 17-year-old son read it.I explained that the background of the author first so that he would be suitably impressed. He loves math, science and computer science and he knows a little about Computer Language Theory.

He got partway through the article and mentioned that there's a lot of social crap in the article. A little later on he said something about science going down the drain. But his bulldetector had a red flag up. I had him read the part about the hoax and he had a good laugh.

I showed him an essay at the Postmodern Generator and he said that it was just a bunch of big words. He already knew that the first one was a hoax so he was already expecting a second one.

What was cool was that it was generated by a recursive grammar generator.

I'll be the first to say that he's a rather naive kid but if a high-school kid can catch a hoax, whynot the folks with advanced degrees on their review team? Then again maybe they don't read them. A simple c program that counts the number of words and then computes the average length of words could act as the screening process for articles.

I like John Edwards. Hiring this harpy from Pandagon was an oversight, and I hope some lower-echelon employee was responsible. I doubt Edwards would have okayed her if he'd read some of her stuff. She'll probably get axed a la Markos Moulitsas once more sunlight is applied to her oeuvre.

--guaunyu---Just like a liberal. In fact you are just like that liberal bunch of Duke 88 scum. Always trying to dictate to other people when things don't go your way.Let me say it loud so that even you will understand that you will not lecture on this blog.JOHN EDWARDS IS A GIGANTIC POS.ELIZABETH EDWARDS IS AN EVEN BIGGER POS.Two phony opportunists.Many of us were turned off by those two using Mary Cheney's lesbianism during the 2004 campaign. They faked concern and tried to condescend to the Cheneys, using the issue of someone's personal life to try to win political points.And it backfired.Elizabeth Edwards travels around telling everyone what to do and how to feel as if she's the only parent to ever lose a child. Yet they insult the offspring of another--Mary Cheney.Those two people are simple frauds who won't get anywhere. Watch and see.Then go visit their 6 million plus mansion as they talk about the poor.You may not be wholly without decency, but you are sure wholly without a bullshit detector.

This guaunyu talks about anonymity.I don't think guaunyu is his real name.Yet he comes here to pick a fight with someone who doesn't hold his views and talks about the anonymity of another.Just like a liberal. Take a look at the Duke 88. They have behaved the very same way---"You had better do it MY way!!!"Sick.

---guaunyu---Now, think back a few posts.You are the lecturer here. Trying to throw your weight around when someone voices an opinion you don't hold.It's as predictable as rain. Liberals will not tolerate any disagreement with what THEY think is right.Thank you for illustrating that point once again.

If you read a bit more carefully, you'll see what I objected to was not the anonymity itself, but using that anonymity to insult people. I guess specifically what chapped my buns was the use of anonymity to insult folk who aren't here to defend themselves and have only the most tangentially tenuous relationship with anything related to the case this blog is about.

Also, on the subject of anonymity itself, while Guaunyu is not my real name, it is my name on this blog. As such, all comments I make are attributable to a single source. In that sense, I am accountable - and take responsibility within this online community - for what I say. Can you say the same?

As for picking a fight, if calling someone on a cowardly misinformed insult counts as fight-picking, then I guess I drew a line in the sand. Still, seems to me that anyone not interested in taking potshots over politics wouldn't view that as picking a fight.

1:26

On what planet do Liberals not tolerate opposing views? You have Leftists and Liberals confused. I'm a Liberal. The Group of 88 are Leftists.

A similar confusion is often found on the left. They tend to confuse Fascists with Conservatives.

Conservatives and Liberals listen to others and engage rationally, but tend to object to ad hominem attacks. Fascists and Leftists don't try to engage the other side, shout each other down, insult each other, don't bother trying to be polite, etc.

Wow, do you miss the point. My complaint has nothing to do with partisanship, and it's sad that you can't seem to see past party affiliations. When people try to slam Barbara Bush or Rush Limbaugh, Republicans, for similarly superficial reasons in an otherwise intelligent conversation it pisses me off. All I'm saying is if you have a problem with a politician - or anyone for that matter - it makes more sense to say what's wrong with their position, than it does to just call them "fat" or "ugly." Why? Because their being fat doesn't make them wrong anymore than their being pretty would make them right. For example, if Elizabeth Edwards became the most beautiful woman in the world overnight, would you change your opinion about her politics?

Look, it's a free country. If people want to make juvenile cracks about polticians' weight or appearance, fine. I don't have to agree that this blog is the right place for it. I also feel free to tell them so. You got a problem with that, go ahead and tell me. It'd be way more impressive if you could do so by sticking to facts and staying moderately polite, though.

If you and others want to keep being rude, fine. I'll keep saying it's inappropriate.

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About Me

I am from Higgins Beach, in Scarborough, Maine, six miles south of Portland. After spending five years as track announcer at Scarborough Downs, I left to study fulltime in graduate school, where my advisor was Akira Iriye. I have a B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard, and an M.A. from the University of Chicago. At Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, I teach classes in 20th century US political, constitutional, and diplomatic history; in 2007-8, I was Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University.

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"From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . , Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you’re unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford."--Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times Book Review